State Of the Whitecaps 3-5-09

Well the auction is over and the Whitecaps fell short of the goals i set a little over

a month ago for players. I did mention in an earlier piece about going young, well
that kind of went by the wayside. The needs of position players far outweighed the youth movement that I had hoped for .

Strengths for the Caps: Defense. The Caps can field a decent defensive team in light of the recent acquisitions of J.Varitek ,D.Dejesus, and E.Chavez. The Caps can field a team of 2's at every position except 3b, the OF arms are tremendous in RF while average in CF and LF. The infield is solid with P.Polanco and JJ hardy anchoring the middle of the infield. C.Figgins is on the corner at 3b and the youngster C.Guillen(lol) is penciled in behind him. 1B is going to be an adventure with the younger barton

starting at 1b and R.Gload behind him for defense. With the departure of B.Molina to
BBM and not matching D.Navarro the Caps went looking for at least 2 C. The Caps picked up 2 veteran catchers in Olivo and the old Varitek.

I dont know whether the pitching staff is a weakness or a strength. The Caps do now have a deep bullpen but the innings average is 59.5 per RP. With the acquisitions of

J.Smith,C.Durbin,and B.Carlyle the Caps are strengthening it to a degree. All of my RP's have decent whip #'s and ERA's. The starting staff is average but with expectations,this staff hinges on J.Verlander with 09 and 2010 reamaining on contract the goal for the Caps is to sign him when he becomes a free agent. Also
adding T.Redding to the roster might help in the short term as he signed with the Mets in real life and maybe he will prosper in that organization.

The Caps do have a glaring weakness and probably everyone has figured it out,

offense, I will make this prediction the Caps will probably hit the fewest HR's in the DBA this year. But this doesn't mean that we wont score runs. One of the Caps priorities in the coming yrs is to acquire a slugger.

All in all it should be a fun year and I hope that my win total is more than the commish predicted. As far as youth is concerned well the draft this coming year will

hold the key.